Thanks to the generosity of a friend, I was able to attain a copy of
The Demon's Lexicon before I thought I would (read: someone was awesome and bought it for me). So, as I have now read the whole thing, I can adequately review it.
In something of a rarity, you'll find two different reviews below. The first is one I wrote for a few different communities on Livejournal. The second I wrote after a reread. My average rating still stands at a 4.5/5.
Review #1:
I have been a fan of Sarah Rees Brennan's for a while (for the rest of this post, I'll be referring to the author as SRB, as Rees Brennan is her last name, and that's a little long). As I said in the previous post about TDL, I read her fan fiction and was pleasantly surprised to find that not ALL fanfiction is... well, painful to read. One of the reasons I was so looking forward to her novel was the amazing job she did with her characters--making them well-rounded and deep, and quite believable. I had hopes that the characters (main and supporting) in TDL would have these same properties.
And I was not disappointed. SRB took the staple of so many fantasy stories, the dark, brooding hero, who mysteriously knows all about the magic that is confounding the other characters and has way more in the way of weaponry than should be allowed, and did something different with it--instead of pulling him out of shadowy corners for other characters to fawn over and fear, she's turned him into her hero, who in turn looks at all the other characters and wonders what on earth is up with them. It works. She's taken Nick Ryves and more or less deconstructed that sterotype quite well. He is very much not your typical hero, but it's done in a way that's believable. He's intriguing, and not predictable, which is quite refreshing. He goes through life with really only his big brother, Alan, for support. They do have a mother, Olivia, but she's no one's idea of a good mother. Nick feels no attachment to her, and she avoids him at all costs, or screams and pitches fits if she can't. It's always been this way, and Nick has learned to live with it. Unfortunately for Alan, he has a mother who is mad, and a brother who doesn't exactly deal well with emotions. He tries to hold his family together, but it's no easy task. Especially not when you spend your life running from a group of magicians who want you dead.
Intruding into the personal hell Alan and Nick try to hide from the world are a brother-sister team, who desperately need the help of the Ryves brothers. Mae (like Mae West) and Jamie seek them out and plead for help in dealing with their "occult problem", help that Alan feels compelled to give, though Nick sees the siblings as merely a complication in their lives. The dynamic between sets of siblings is nothing alike, but both sets of relationships seem real, and it's great to read supporting characters who are three-dimensional. Mae is tough and eager to learn and do whatever she can to help with their little problem, while Jamie tries hard, but is...well, a wuss. A likeable wuss, though. Mae's toughness and Jamie's vulnerability contrast nicely with Nick's stoicism and Alan's dual nature (he's a fighter, but not quite as strong physically as Nick is, due to an injury that has left him crippled). In fact, Alan might be one of the most intriguing characters I've read in a long time. He and Nick keep a lot of secrets, but Alan has more than anyone else suspects--his brother included. He's spent most of his life keeping some of them, and when they come out, they're quite shocking.
Besides the characters, one of the other things that kept the story so enjoyable was the consistent strength of SRB's plot. It flowed well, with few slow moments, and the balance between plot, action sequences, and character development was enough to keep it consistently moving forward. The bits of foreshadowing are done with a light touch; no heavy-handed hints to smash you over the head with a mallet. They're there, and though you might catch them as you read, they don't trip up the flow, and they don't ruin the climax of the book.
There is, of course, a plot twist. And it's a doozy. While some readers might see the gist of it coming (I did, after a while), the execution is wonderfully done. It's not completely out of nowhere, but it's not so predictable that even if you suspect the twist, you're bored with it. Really, the execution is nearly everything. There are a few big reveals in the last third of the book, but the climax is tight, and dwarfs the others. Also consistent is the use of humor--SRB has a knack for it, and it comes out fluidly in the narration, and especially the dialogue. Jamie and Nick have a lot of great lines, in particular. So many of them are randomly quoteable, and humor is often used to balance the tension.
Since this is the first in a planned trilogy (
The Demon's Covenant comes out in June or July of 2010), the ending is left so a good bit of the conflict is resolved--the main premise the characters are preparing for and working toward is completed, but with that huge plot twist towards the end, so many more possibilities are opened, and the book leaves you wondering where on earth the characters will go from here, with this new information, but not in that outraged way (you know, like the outrage people felt after the finale of
The Sopranos).
Yes, I know I appear to have a bias because I had a lot of prior love for SRB, but I can see books objectively. I've read books by authors I *love* and have been disappointed, and have read amazing books by people I don't know anything else about. I've read books that are wonderfully written, but don't do much for me, and ones that I find entertaining, but are absolutely awful, as far as the actual writing goes (one particular series comes to mind on that last). I think part of why I enjoyed TDL so much as a whole is because of the interpersonal dynamics, and the concept of how words play into this story (it is the Demon's LEXICON, after all, though the way that plays out is quite good and subtle for the most part).
This is marketed as Young Adult urban fantasy, much like the Harry Potter series was, and I'd say the main target audience would be readers in high school, though younger and older readers can certainly enjoy the story. There are moments of violence (as one might expect in a story that deals with demons, swords, and death curses), and a few moments of sexual tension, but nothing too extreme--just enough to be believeable, in context. This is one novel I feel very comfortable recommending to pretty much everyone I know.
Review #2 (written after a second read-through):
As I have seen other people mention, it was refreshing to read a YA novel where romance does not factor heavily. There is lots of love, but it's familial love--brotherly (and sisterly) and devoted. Mae could be considered the love interest, but the touch is fairly light in this regard.
Sarah Rees Brennan has a knack for humor. It's apparent in her blog and her fanfiction. It shone a little less brightly in this book, but it was still present. Nick and Jamie have most of the good lines, and while Mae was spunky and opinionated, I felt a little more could have been done with her. She and her brother crash in on the secret life Nick and older brother Alan try to keep hidden, pleading for help with Jamie's predicament. The relationship between brother and sister is believable, but I wanted just the slightest bit more. The dynamic between Nick and Alan took some getting used to, but as the story goes on, it works well in context.
While the protagonist is undoubtedly Nick, the dark brooding hero who has all this knowledge of swords and demons and evil magicians (Sarah Rees Brennan has attempted to deconstruct this stereotype, and it works well enough, especially as the story goes on), it is Alan who is perhaps the most intriguing throughout. Both Ryves brothers keep secrets, but Alan keeps more than anyone else suspects--even Nick. And when Nick glimpses something Alan's been keeping from him, he becomes obsessed with uncovering it fully.
There are a few twists in the last third of the book or so, and one huge one toward the very end. There are clues layered throughout the story, but the foreshadowing is done with a light touch, and even if you see the gist of the twist coming, the full reveal is still a bit shocking, though it makes the rest of the novel make more sense. The title of the book doesn't seem to have much to do with the story, but once the book is finished, it makes a good deal of sense, and is powerful enough. By the end, the main "goal" of the characters has been accomplished, but enough new questions are opened by the final plot twist to lend themselves well enough to the sequel (The Demon's Covenant) that will be released (and followed by the final bit in the trilogy).
There is violence, though most of it isn't too graphic. There's no sex (but there is a small amount of sexual tension). The book is YA, but I'd put it on the higher end of that spectrum--more high school than late elementary/middle school, though some younger readers might also appreciate it. For comparison purposes, I'd say in that regard, it's like the last few Harry Potter novels--the ones that were darker and had more violence and moral ambiguity in places.
